Newspapers Beware: Local Search Services Are Rolling Out

"Could local search be as much of a threat to newspapers -- and in some advertising categories, local TV -- as online classified services have been? I think it's certainly possible. Leaving out classifieds, a newspaper's business model revolves around connecting local buyers to local merchants."

The Technology of Personalized Pitches

"The second round of CRM and marketing-tech, though, is enjoying a much greater rate of success for a number of reasons. For starters, companies have downsized their ambitions. "What's totally different now is they purchase with a discreet goal in mind," says Mary Wardley, vice-president for enterprise-software research at tech consultancy IDC Corp. While earlier versions of these systems were mostly reserved for big companies, many of the latest offerings can be bought on a per-seat basis for a few thousand dollars a year or less."

The Open Source Paradigm Shift

"In short, if it is sufficiently robust an innovation to qualify as a new paradigm, the open source story is far from over, and its lessons far from completely understood. Rather than thinking of open source only as a set of software licenses and associated software development practices, we do better to think of it as a field of scientific and economic inquiry, one with many historical precedents, and part of a broader social and economic story. We must understand the impact of such factors as standards and their effect on commoditization, system architecture and network effects, and the development practices associated with software as a service. We must study these factors when they appear in proprietary software as well as when they appear in traditional open source projects."

MMO Sex please we're Avatars

"Sociolotron is rather different, it is a full on role play game with combat, crafting, points systems, oh and sex, lots of sex, especially BDSM with options for rape and consequences such as disease, death and pregnancy. It also has a strong political side with like the choice of democracy or tyranny being part of the game."

Computers Chase the Checkered Flag

"Technology, of course, is reshaping the preparation and tactics for many sports. But in Formula One racing, it is at the center of the sport, a test of the ability to perfect the synergy between man and machine. And the result has been to create a cyborg - a blend of man and machine in every sense of the word."

Giving It Away (for Fun and Profit)

"But what's really interesting is that as more and more artists use Creative Commons to tell the world that it's OK to copy, distribute, and build on their work, the first glimpses emerge of an economy based on the free exchange of digital content."

Microsoft DRM Talk

"Companies like Microsoft steer like old Buicks, and this issue has a lot of forward momentum that will be hard to soak up without driving the engine block back into the driver's compartment. At best I think that Microsoft might convert some of that momentum on DRM into angular momentum, and in so doing, save all our asses."